Will Wireless Charging Go Mainstream?

Presently, you may have seen a lot of phones with a new type of charging technology called wireless charging. It was first introduced by Samsung in the Galaxy S7 Edge in 2016. And now, two years later, nearly every flagship phone worth its salt has it.

The Basics

Wireless charging involves charging a phone using electromagnetic induction. Basically, a current is passed through a wrapped coil in the charging dock which generates a magnetic field. This field charges the coil inside the phone. This type of charging technology does not involve any kind of wires per se as the phone can just be placed on the dock and it will start charging. Truly wireless charging is quite far away, it’s safe to assume. True wireless charging would mean I flicked on a switch at one end of the room and my phone started charging at the other end without any wire being involved. Too early for that.

But the question is, will the current standard of wireless charging become mainstream in smartphones? In all probability, yes. The rate at which smartphones are evolving at every price point, it is safe to say that in a couple of years, even budget smartphones will get this technology. As it is, a Rs 10,000 phone currently can do everything a Rs 50,000 phone could 5-6 years ago.

The Costs

Wireless charging technology is certainly not cheap. At present, we can see only the high-end flagship smartphones possessing this feature. But engineers around the world are making efficient ways of creating wireless charging technology so that this feature can make its way to the mid-range smartphones as well.

Panasonic recently introduced the wireless charging feature on one of its latest smartphones for a price of Rs 27,000 or so. OnePlus was also rumoured to include this technology in its upcoming OnePlus 6T smartphone, however, it looks like that is not to be if the latest rumours are to be believed.

We can surely rely on the likes of Chinese smartphone makers such as Xiaomi and Huawei to bring this technology to the masses. The future seems to be a bright for the smartphone industry if current wireless standards become the norm. Expect life to not tangled with all the messy wires and cables soon.